Aussie Motoring Legend Peter Brock died in car crash

[Monster]

It has been a shockingly sad week here in Australia. 1st came the passing of Steve Irwin, now days later, the Aussie motoring legend Peter Brock has passed away in a rally accident. I am not sure if any of you guys have heard of him but he is even more popular and just as equally well known in Australia than Steve Irwin. He is a genuine all around nice guy and he is a very very charismatic person. Racing fans from all generations rush to see him when he is on the race track, and he does spend the time to talk to the racing fans. It is hard to explain in words why he command huge respect from both the racing fans and non racing but Peter Brock fan. Once again i am depressed.

Brock killed in hairpin race smash
David Braithwaite, The Sydney Morning Herald, 08/09/06

Australian motor racing legend Peter Brock has been killed in a racing accident in Western Australia.


Racing legend Peter Brock ... reported killed.


Australian motor racing legend Peter Brock has been killed in an accident while taking part in the Targa West rally in Western Australia, motor sport officials have confirmed.

Brock, who had three children, was driving with colleague Mick Hone in a Daytona Coupe when the incident occurred.

"The back end just slid out and that was it,
it was all over. The car didn't roll, the back end
just slid out from behind him and slammed straight
into a tree and it got him right in the driver's door

West Australian police say the car crashed into a tree at Gidgegannup about 40 kilometres north-east of Perth about 12pm (AEST). No other vehicles were involved, it is understood.

A witness, Tony Varass, said it was believed motorbike riders also had been killed near the same hairpin bend where Brock crashed.

"The owner of this property that I'm at, Bob Watson, has been trying to get something done about the corner for a long time,'' he told Sky News. "He says this is a very dangerous corner.''

Trapped in car for more than four hours

Brock's body was trapped in his crashed car for more than four hours before emergency workers managed to free it.

A Fire and Emergency Services Association (FESA) spokesperson said event organisers, Targa West, had their own safety contractor but removing Mr Brock's body had been harder than initially thought.

"They would have done their initial rescue and they would have called us in because it was more difficult," the FESA spokesperson said.

"It was believed to be quite a simple procedure but apparently it's not and we sent one appliance (jaws of life) out there to make an extraction possible."

Mr Brock's body was removed from the vehicle at 1545 (WST) and taken to a waiting ambulance.

Les Andrews, who was first on the scene, said he opened the driver's side door of Mr Brock's car and was shocked.



"It wasn't a very nice thing ... you are looking at your idol and the idol is looking at you in a peaceful way," Mr Andrews said. "You just feel so helpless."

Witness account

Mr Varass said he was within 10 metres of the tree Brock's car crashed into.

The road was moist and it had been drizzling with rain, he said.

"The car went around the corner, he was going no faster than anybody else, and in control and it just slipped off the road and straight into the tree,'' he said. "It was just one of those things, motor racing.''

Asked if he thought Brock had died instantly, Mr Varass replied: "No. I was there within a minute and I really didn't give him any hope at all.''


Another witness to the fatal crash says Brock appeared to lose control of his vehicle on a tight hairpin bend before slamming into a tree.

The rally spectator, identified only as Jock, told Philip Clark's program on Macquarie Radio that he was standing just metres from the site of the accident.

Back end slid out

"The back end just slid out and that was it, it was all over," he said.

"The car didn't roll, the back end just slid out from behind him and slammed straight into a tree and it got him right in the driver's door."

Brock's co-driver Hone has been taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Aerial footage from the crash site showed the silver rally car nudged up against the trunk of a gum tree with skid marks off the road.

A blue tarpaulin had been placed over the driver-side window.

Choking back tears, Jock said he believed Brock would have died within "maybe two minutes of impact" and that "not a thing" could have been done to save him.

"The car is a complete write-off," he said.

"The co-driver was taken away in an ambulance with severe stomach injuries, unfortunately."

Treacherous bend

The witness said it had rained this morning but the road through the "treacherous bend" was drying out.

He said Brock "lost it" a little on the first part of the bend before straightening up.

"The back end (then) just seemed to hit a bit of ... gravel on the road that the other cars had thrown up and he just lost it, straight into a tree."

He added: "I didn't realise who it was at first, then I realised who it was and I was just heart-broken."

Girlfriend: 'It's surreal'

Brock's girlfriend Julie Bamford told the Herald's Drive editor Joshua Dowling: "It's surreal. He's such a gorgeous guy."

Brock died in a car originally built by his US "doppelganger'' Pete Brock, motor racing expert and commentator John Smailes said today.

Mr Smailes said the American Brock, a good friend of the Australian, had himself been a great racing driver in the US in the 1960s.

He said he built the original Daytona cobra coupe for a friend in 1963 and a replica of the car had recently been built in Australia for a wealthy car racing enthusiast.

"Peter Brock and his co-driver Mick Hone had driven the thing last year in Targa Tas (Tasmania) and Peter Brock just couldn't wait to get back in the car again because it was exactly the sort of car that he Brock loved,'' Mr Smailes told Macquarie Radio.

"It was high horse-powered rear-wheel-drive car that he could control not with muscle, but with the finesse that he brought to his driving.

"I've never seen a man tame such a wild beast of a motor car with such finesse as Peter.

"He would have been putting out probably 500 - 600 horsepower.

"He pitched it into a corner in the wet - realise that this man is absolutely the master of wet weather control - left the track momentarily and he hit a tree.

There goes the icon of the sport

"There goes the icon of Australian motor sport.''


The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) said in a statement the accident occurred at about 11.50am (AEST).

CAMS said it will conduct a full investigation into the incident.

"The co-driver has been conveyed to hospital in a stable condition," CAMS president Colin Osbourne said.

"CAMS will conduct a full investigation into the accident. In the meantime CAMS and event officials are working with the relevant civil authorities.

"On behalf of the motorsport community, CAMS offers its sincere sympathy to Peter's family and many friends."

The Targa West - which began in Perth yesterday - is a tarmac special stage rally which takes place over four days and is divided into two categories, competition and challenge, the latter catering for relatively standard specification road cars.

Brock, 61, from Melbourne, became Australia's best known motor sport personality and a dominant figure in the sport.

Dominant figure

He was a dominant figure in Australian motor sport, winning the Bathurst 1000, Australia's most prominent domestic motorsport event, a total of nine times through the 1970s and 80s.

He won six Bathurst 1000 wins in seven years, including his victory in the 1979 event, which he won by a record six laps.

He retired from full-time driving in 1997.

Since 1997, he had made two return visits to Bathurst in 2002 and 2004 and returned to top-level touring car racing as a team owner of ``Team Brock'' in 2002 in the V8 Supercar category. A year later he sold his share in the team to Kees Weel.

In recent years, he occasionally competed in various motorsport events such as the Targa Tasmania.

Known as 'Peter Perfect' and the 'King of the Mountain', Brock retired from full-time racing in 1997 but returned to Bathurst to win a 24-hour race in 2003.

The editor of Wheels magazine, Jed Bulmer, says Peter Brock was the consummate driving professional who won many accolades, but will best be remembered for his mastery of the race circuit at Bathurst.

"You know the great Australian touring car race and a race which is regarded as one of the most difficult touring car races in the world and Peter was the nine-times winner there at what is known these days as the Bathurst 1000," he told ABC radio.

"He had a long and very successful career there, he was the 'King of the Mountain' as he came to be known."

source: http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=19884&vf=2

 

[Monster]

more on Peter Brock

SEPTEMBER 8, 2006
Peter Brock
Peter Brock, Australia's biggest motor racing star for the last 30 years, has been killed in a rallying accident in Western Australia. The 61-year-old was driving a 1964 AC Cobra Daytona Coupe on the Targa West in Western Australia. The car went off at Gidgegannup, about 25 miles to the north-east of Perth during a tarmac special stage, and went into a tree on the driver's side. Medical crews worked on Brock briefly but there was little that could be done.

Peter Brock was the dominant figure in Australian motor sport from the 1970s onwards and even in recent years his presence at racing events created bigger queues for autographs than the V8 Supercar stars of the modern age. Brock's fame rested on an almost supernatural talent. For him racing was simply a natural thing and he gloried in the gift he had been given. Peter might have been a great open-wheeler racer and was keen to try but could not raise the money to race in Formula 5000 in 1971 and did just a handful of races the following year in Birrana F2 cars. He then turned his back on single-seaters, saying that he did not like driving them and one can only wonder what might have been if he had pushed a little harder to make it in Europe. The lure of the Australian lifestyle and the hero worship of his fellow countrymen and women, kept Peter in Australia, happy to be a big fish in a smaller pool. He won the Bathurst 1000 race, Australia's biggest race until the arrival of the F1 Grand Prix, on nine occasions; was the Australian touring car champion on three occasions and the country's first rallycross champion as well.

In the end Brock became much more than just a racing star. He was "Brockie", the "King of the Mountain" or "Peter Perfect". He was a household name and adored by his fans not just for his speed but also for his charisma and his genuine interest in people in general. Brock loved to be a man of the people and no kid ever forgot the moment when he signed an autograph, in that moment the full power of Brockie's personality was concentrated on them. It was an amazing thing to watch.

I first met Brock in the mid 1980s at Monza when he came to Europe with his Mobil Holden Dealer Team to take on the world's best touring car racers in a programme of races in preparation for the World Touring car Championship that was planned for the following year.

"We played with a totally straight bat, and thought that was the common agreement," he remembered years later. "We were given some rude awakenings and didn't have the wherewithal to respond rapidly."

During that period I got to know Brock well and ended up writing a book about his adventures in Europe. At the time he was going through a curious period in his life having become convinced that he had invented a device that would make cars all over the world perform better. It was caused "the energy polariser" and polarised opinion. I cannot say that I was a believer but I was impressed at Brockie's wide-eyed innocence and belief in the device. It cost him his relationship with General Motor Holden and much credibility but he came back from that and in time became Holden's favoured son again. That was Brock. His charm and enthusiasm for everything if life was enthralling and refreshing and it was a great pleasure to see him each year in Melbourne, where he acted as a ambassador for the Australian Grand Prix and sat on the board as well.

Although he retired from racing in 1997 he could not stay away and raced whenever he could. Racing was his life.

His father was a garage owner and Brock grew up surrounded by cars. He started racing at 22 in an Austin A30 with a Holden engine. That was in 1967 and two years later he was spotted by Harry Firth, the manager of the new Holden Dealer Team and was offered a ride in a Holden Monaro at Bathurst. He won the race for the first time in 1972 and followed up with wins in 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1987. He was the Australian Touring Car Champion of 1974, 1978 and 1980. In 1979 he also won the Repco Round Australia Trial.

In 1976 he took a team to the Le Mans 24 Hours with a BMW 3.5CSL which he ran for himself, Brian Muir and Jean-Claude Aubriet but that programme did not lead to the international career he had hoped. He would return to Le Mans in 1984 in a Porsche 956 tacing under the Team Australia banner with Larry Perkins but Perkins crashed the car in the middle of the night.

In 1980 he established Holden Special Vehicles to build road-going specials based on Holden models. This was a huge success until 1987 when the partnership broke up over the energy polariser. Brock continued to race in private teams before returning to the factory Holden Racing Team in 1994. He played an active role in promoting road safety with the .05 campaign to alert Australians to the dangers of drinking and driving, racing for many years in a car with 05 as its number. In 1980 he was awarded the Australian Medal in 1980 in recognition of his contribution to motor sport and road safety.

Brock's foray to Europe was seen by some as a significant point in the history of Australian Touring Car racing as it helped transport the sport into the professional activity it is today.

Neal Lowe, one of Brock's team mates during the European adventure, probably summed him up best.

"He had an incredible talent for driving," Lowe said. "He could drive around any problem with the car."

Racing has lost one of its best ambassadors and Australia has lost a national hero, its second within a few days following the death of Steve Irwin, the celebrated Crocodile Hunter.

As an indication of Brock's standing in Australia, even the Prime Minister John Howard felt the need to comment.

"It's been a pretty sad week for Australia," he said. "And Brockie will be very sadly missed."

Joe Saward

source
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17424.html

 

[Snake Vargas]

RIP. Sad loss for the Australian motoring community, and Australian public culture in general. Yet, the loss felt for me is more cultural than personal in any way, or emotional - I never knew the guy himself.

Many more die on our roads every other day anyway, each of those heroes in their own way - fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. A life is a life - each death is a loss.

 

[SDNR]

You Australians are having a tough week .....I don't know much about Peter Brock, but he always seemed like a nice guy ...a sad end to a great career.